Looking at the DC reboot and Avengers old and New

I love New Comic Book day.

Can't say it any clearer than that. Because I am a man of few vices, I rarely drink, I don't smoke, I actually tried (COMMENT REMOVED) back at a party in 1984 and honestly thought "This is it? This is the big deal?" Didn't get the attraction then and still don't now.  Conversely when a musician I like releases a new cd, I can play it for hours dissecting the subtleties of the production, devouring the liner notes, going back and listening to their past catalog.  I can do that under the headphones for hours on end.....

I get that same same feeling on New Comic Book day too.  My average is about 20 titles a week, sometimes more, sometimes less, and I usually read them all the day I get them.  People who know me know that New Comic Day is not to be trifled with.  Sometimes the phone will ring, and I usually ignore it, and when I do answer my response is: "You do know it's New Comic Book day? Yes? Then why are you interrupting my program?"  The perfect New Comic Book day goes like this:  Head out to A-1 Comics, hang out and talk Sports and Comics with Brian the owner and Dwayne, get my books, head back to the house, make a Big-Ass mug of Iced Tea, sometimes some Sushi, turn off the tv, turn on some music, and get my read on! That routine never gets old for me. It is my thing and will not change anytime soon.  Now, on to the books...

Detective Comics #1

 For those who don't know and don't follow comics, DC has done a total re-start of their entire line of books.  All of them. All of their titles are being re-launched from Number 1, DC is making a huge statement and taking a big risk with this and I can see both sides of the debate here.  DC wants to make these characters accessible to new readers and not make them feel that they have to catch up on in some cases 75 years if continuity, and as part of their marketing strategy they have aired commercials on Comedy Central showing the new design of the re-launched books.  Bold move, because I can't recall the last DC commercial I have seen, so they are definitely pushing their brand out there and getting it into mainstream culture.  I can wholeheartedly applaud their efforts, but at the same time I can see the other side of the debate as well.  Re-starting the entire line can be seen to discount the long-standing readers, I have heard people say that they are being deprived of seeing Action Comics #1000 or Batman #900.  Marvel had re-started their books and faced a lot of the same criticism and later returned to the original numbering for most of their titles.  Will DC see a similar backlash?     A lot of long-time readers feels that their interests are being sacrificed in the name of catering to new readers. I don't know, but time will tell.

As for this first issue of Detective, the reader is treated to a Batman already established as a vigilante working outside the law for the most part, and still a very mysterious figure in Gotham City.  The story opens up with long time foe the Joker in a fist fight with an unnamed person who looks to have a flesh mask on.  Yes you read that right. Yuck. Batman while on the search for Joker arrives just as the Joker is repeatedly stabbing the victim in the chest.  Just when Batman is about to take Joker away he hears a voice of a young witness and in order to save that witness he had to let the Joker get away.  After returning to the Batcave and then meeting with Commissioner/Lieutenant Gordon, I phrase it that way because in the new universe that distinction hasn't been made clear yet.  But the meeting with the two look as if it came straight from the film "The Dark Knight", the artist and writer here,Tony S. Daniel, drew Gordon as if he was looking at the DVD of "The Dark Knight", he looks just like Gary Oldman did in the film. Later in the story Batman picks up the trail of the Joker and apprehends him and takes him to Arkham Asylum, where the doctor there says about the Joker, "He's sick, not evil", and honestly at this point this isn't anything that we haven't seen before, and I was really questioning the utility of the need for a relaunch if they were going to do the same thing over again.  But once he's in custody things get a little difference from the past.  The Joker is visited by a new character called the Dollmaker, and after a conversation between the two where it's clear that the Dollmaker is there on the whim of the Joker. we see on the last panel why he's there.  Yuck.  It's gross.  I won't give away the reveal on that panel, but I can say that it is something that I have NEVER seen form the Joker before.  This will warrant further reading.  DC has run both a Batman title and a Detective title since the '40s, and while the Batman title has been more Superhero based, Detective has generally focused on Batman's skill as a detective. And with what the Joker looks to have lined up....he will need them.  Yuck.

Stormwatch #1

The Stormwatch title is holdover from the Wildstorm imprint.  History lesson time: back in the 90's a group of Artists left Marvel Comics en masse to form Image Comics.  And each artist created his own universe, Jim Lee now the co-Publisher of DC Comics, created Aegis Entertainment, later Homage, and later WildstormWildstorm were Wildcats, Gen-13, and Astro City, to name a few. When Lee decided to leave Image he sold Wildstorm to DC.  DC with this re-launch is taking the opportunity to fully integrate some of those characters into DC continuity.  The premise of Stormwatch back in the Wildstorm days was the same as it is now, they are a UN sanctioned team assembled to deal with alien and earth-threatening issues.
In the original run the Stormwatch teamed morphed into The Authority, a team that was going to make change and damn the consequences.  Here they are looking for Apollo a mainstay of the original team.  The current team is led by Jack Hawksmoor, who was genetically engineered to "talk" to cites.  It's too hard too explain here, but it works. But the twist here for the number 1 issue is that he's joined on the team by J'onn J'ones, the Martian Manhunter.  That addition gives the team some real muscle.  While in the background story there is trouble on the moon. because it appears that that the moon is somehow threatening the earth,  But the teams focus here is on the search for Apollo, who in the original run was the Wildstorm equivalent to Superman, so he's no pushover.  But as mentioned earlier, this team has the Martian Manhunter and he can go toe-to-toe with Superman, so they eventually locate Apollo who initially tells them he wants nothing to do with them. After the obligatory brawl, the Martian Manhunter and his team finally subdue Apollo and tell him that he may be the most powerful person on the planet and they need his help.  But before anything else can happen all of the Stormwatch team are dropped one by one in their footsteps by a lone figure.  The figure stops and introduces himself to Apollo, he is the Midnighter.  It's all about to change now.  Back in the original run, Midnighter was the Wildstorm equivalent to Batman, meaning that he is the baddest man in the universe.  And also in the original Stormwatch Apollo and Midnighter were lovers.  Oh, do I have your attention now?  Here they have set it so the two of them are meeting for the first time here, so the question is now will DC alter their past relationship and play it safe and not have them be lovers, which would be a chicken-shit move, or will they keep to the core of the characters.  It remains to be seen.

Another interesting conundrum is the in the new CD universe, there is the Justice League, which has the heavy hitters i.e. Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, flash, Green Lantern and some others.  Their jurisdiction doesn't appear to be UN sanctioned at this time, they are more or less a group that deals with major threats, but if that's the case what about Justice League International? They DO have UN sanction, and Batman rides with them on the sly, and they do have a Green Lantern as well, everybody's favorite, Guy Gardner.  But aside from those two they don't really carry the mass appeal that that the other team has, Gardner has called them the "B-List" team, and that's what it appears to be now.  And finally there is Stormwatch. They are meant to deal with the same type of Earth-threatening issues that both Justice League teams are designed to handle.  This could lead to some interesting dynamics down the line.... But they have piqued my curiosity with this so I will continue to read to see how it all comes together, or falls apart...?


New Avengers Annual #1

The final new book for this week's review is New Avengers Annual #1. I selected this book because of the way it touches on past events.  It is acknowledging past continuity which is something I love to see happen in comics.  The gist of the main portion is that Simon Williams aka Wonder Man has told the Avengers in the recent past that their totalitarian way of dealing with things, his opinion, has to be stopped at any cost.  So to that end he rounds up his own group and attacks the team at their mansion, and after his team wins the fight they next focus their aim on the Avengers team who is at Avengers Tower, and that fight will take place in Avengers Annual #1 in a few weeks.  And while the storyline with Wonder Man and his team is alright, what really stood out for me was when he was relating to his team of recruits stories of how the Avengers by their actions and inactions, have placed the Earth in jeopardy several times.  And as he recounted each incident as I read it, I could recall each book those events came from.  And as he told the story, each one got a double-page spread capturing the essence of each incident. 

The first was the creation of Ultron, a genocidal indestructible robot with constantly evolving intellect created by Hank Pym, aka Goliath/Yellowjacket/Ant-Man/Giant-Man, a founding member of the team, and this machine has been a World-level threat for decades now, but the Avengers haven't dealt with him with any finality yet and each life he endangers and ends is on their head.  the double-page spread captured a scene from Avengers #67 from in the late 60's. I remember this because I've read it, I remember collecting it way back when because that was right after Hawkeye became Goliath for awhile and Ultron had composed himself out of Adamantium in indestructible metal alloy.  I remember that story because the first time I read it I was in 8th grade and remember being shocked that there was a metal that Thor couldn't dent....that was going to lead to problems.

The next was taken from Avengers #187, and in that issue the Scarlet witch had been taken over by the demon/spirit Chthon(sp) and she had wreaked havoc form that possession.  But later she went wacky and lost control of her reality-warping powers which led to the genocide of the vast majority of the Mutant population.  And since the Scarlet witch was an Avenger and this happened on their watch, Wonder man holds the Avengers responsible for not addressing her mental instability before people got hurt.  The Scarlet Witch has a history of mental breakdowns, in fact at one time she had used her powers to artificially create children for her and her then-husband the Vision, an Android....long story. But the scene taken from #187 was reminiscent of the artist back then, John Byrne, and his work has always been some of my favorite over the years. 

The other three were taken from Civil War, Dark Avengers, and Avengers #3.  All key moments but they don't stand out like the first two do.  So it looks as if Wonder Man is holding the Avengers to task for what he feels are transgressions against humanity, it will be curious to see how it resolves in a few weeks, and hopefully they will continue to do the flashback panels. I for one love them.

Since this inaugural review wen a tad long...:) I'll save the look back from the collection for next time, but I will answer the question of why "Comics are like Jazz" is the title.

Back when Image comics was forming all of the creators there enjoyed a huge level of unprecedented popularity at the time.  At all of the conventions they were treated like Rock Stars, it was insane, but one of the creators, Erik Larsen of "Savage Dragon" said in an interview during the peak of popularity that comics were like jazz, and by that he was referring to the rise in popularity of Jazz back in the mid-80's, and eventually it ended but the hard-core, true fan still remained before and after the popularity boom.  And I thought about that and he's right, in the 90's comics went through a tremendous growth in sales and popularity, but like music of many types, once something gets so popular, what made it special begins to fade, and the producers get caught up in trying to re-create that magic instead of doing what made them great in the first place.  And that just dilutes the product making for a lot of bad books back then.  A lot.  But after the bubble burst and the casual fan was lost to the next Big Thing, the true die-hard's remained.  Just like the real Jazz fans in the mid-80's weathered the storm of Kenny G and other such nonsense. Comic fans did the same.  And will do so again once the trend of Comic-based movies has run its course too.  Comics are what we do, regardless of the pulse of whatever is popular.  So I felt that title was accurate for what I'm trying to do here, thus I co-opted it for use here.

There you have it, thoughts on a couple of the new DC books and an Annual from the Avengers.  This one went longer than expected but with time and practice it will develop into more of a streamlined read...hopefully...

Thanks for reading!

Marc Wiggins
"I'm Big Sexy...and I can do anything....."